The Horrible Sickness
by Lauralot
Summary: What's worse than the Clown Prince of Crime? The Clown Prince of Crime with a fever. Rated for language, violence, and briefly disgusting content, but mostly for safety.


AN: I made this one-shot to commemorate my one year fic-writing anniversary. The first chapter of my first Batman fic was published on October 5, 2008, so I thought I'd celebrate the occasion by doing something special for October 5, 2009.

This story takes place a few months after the events of _The Dark Knight, _on the assumption that both the Joker and the Scarecrow have managed to break out of Arkham. For those who follow my other fics, this does not take place in their continuity.

An explanation for the insanity contained herein is to be found in the ending author's note.

Reviews are always appreciated!

* * *

The Joker had been coughing on and off for the past three hours, and he steadfastly—almost _religiously_—refused to quit.

True, coughing was hardly something that could be controlled, and the apartment was lacking any sort of cough syrups or drops, but the man had refused an offer for a glass of water, and Jonathan Crane was hardly in the mood to be generous where the Clown Prince of Crime was concerned. Social etiquette had never been one of Jonathan's strong points, but even he knew that taking up residence as a houseguest without being invited for so much as a friendly visit and then hacking diseased air over every inch of all four rooms was an unforgivable _faux pas._

It had been two weeks ago, yesterday morning, that the Joker had discovered the apartment. Jonathan had no idea _how _he'd found it; barbaric as he acted, it wouldn't be surprising to find that he'd sniffed it out, like a police hound gone feral and foaming at the mouth. He wasn't suicidal enough to ask why the Joker had chosen him for a roommate, and to be honest, Jonathan couldn't be sure if it was intentional. He continued to theorize that it was, lack of evidence aside, because the idea that out of every apartment in Gotham City—or even just the Narrows—the Joker had picked his at random was too much to take without going mad from the revelation that the earth itself hated him.

Two weeks ago, yesterday morning. It was a wonder Jonathan hadn't fled from his own apartment, at this point.

A sneeze, this time. When he wasn't coughing, he was sneezing, and Jonathan shuddered to think of the mess the clown had to be leaving behind. He had no tissues, an item that had seemed trivial when he'd bought the necessities for the apartment. That decision had proven itself to be a massive oversight. Especially considering that it was the middle of cold and flu season. He'd always kept himself clean enough prevent illness, so it had never been a concern, but he should have taken into account extenuating circumstances. Though to be fair, who could have predicted this?

The sneezing stopped, and for one glorious moment, silence fell over the living space like manna from heaven. Jonathan held his breath, knowing it was foolish to hope, but unable to stop. Maybe the Joker had recovered. Or died, suffocating on his own phlegm. The latter would be preferable, but he was realistic enough to realize it was hardly likely. He exhaled, counting the seconds of quiet. Ten, eleven, twel—

"Jonny?"

His hope faded so quickly, he barely had time to note its loss before anger took its place, seething inside him like water boiling over on a stovetop. _My name is _not _Jonny._ It was Jonathan, and they were _far _from a first name basis. Jonny had been the name of that helpless, pathetic child growing up in Georgia, what the other children had called him when they weren't thinking up less complimentary nicknames. Jonny had been weak, defenseless, unable and unwilling to fight back. He was past that point in his life, forever, and yet the Joker could bring it back with just a word.

God, how he hated him.

"Jonny!" Another bout of coughing. Holding in the urge to shout, Jonathan stood, wanting nothing more than to give the Joker a concentrated dose of his toxin and watch him panic himself into cardiac arrest. Unfortunately, he had no toxin, as he'd put all the money he had towards essentials like food and clothing, and there wasn't much money in drug-dealing now that everyone knew about his tendency to cut drugs with hallucinogens. It hadn't much mattered when he was the only dealer in the business, but with the police search against the Batman, the Caped Crusader had appeared less and less, and corruption had slipped back into the city.

He crossed what little there was of the living room, with its peeling plaster and threadbare carpet, stopping in the doorway. The apartment was barely large enough for one person, let alone two. So of course the Joker had stolen the bed. "What do you want?" If tones were acidic, his would have a pH of zero.

"I've decided to, uh, take you up on your offer for water." He'd never looked more psychotic, makeup half-gone from wiping his face and hair even more untamed than usual. Had it been anyone else, it would have been comical.

"That was a one-time deal." He noted that the Joker's voice had become less nasal, and more scratchy. With any luck, he'd lose it altogether. Not that Jonathan had any luck.

The Joker glared for a solid thirty seconds, before pausing to wipe his nose on some piece of dark fabric he held, probably a pillow case. Because it wasn't enough to take the bed; he had to defile it as well. "I'm sick."

"And yet your legs still work."

He began to sit up, at that, and Jonathan got the distinct feeling he was about to have his neck broken, but the Joker stopped almost as quickly as he'd started, to blow his nose again. "You know, for a doctor, your bedside manner sucks."

"Not that sort of doctor." And to think that he'd taken offense when his mother had once referred to him as "a doctor, but not the kind that does anything." The clown was destroying Jonathan's convictions with his mere presence.

"I could be dying," the Joker protested, pouting in a ridiculous exaggeration of sadness. "Do you even care?"

"No, and hardly, to answer in the reverse. You've got, what? Coughing, sneezing, and probably a headache?" He didn't wait for a nod of assent. "That's acute viral rhinopharyngitis. A doctorate isn't even necessary to deduce it." Noticing the Joker's blank stare, he added, "A cold."

"You were that kid who always sat alone at lunch, am I right?"

Jonathan began mentally reciting his toxin recipe, which he'd been doing often over the past two weeks to keep from losing his temper and saying something that would get him killed. He could recite other things, such as the Hippocratic Oath or _The Raven_, but the recipe was full of words that took longer to say, even in his mind, such as hyoscyamine, and that gave him more time to relax himself. He let his gaze drift as he did—anything was a better visual than eye contact with the man—eventually stopping at the fabric in the Joker's hands. At first glance, he'd thought it was a pillowcase, but the material was too thick, and the pattern familiar—

"Are you using my sweater vest as a Kleenex?"

The Joker stopped mid-wipe, pulling it away from his face. "Is that what this is? I thought it was a dish rag."

He managed to restrain the "Go to hell" he was dying to say, but was unable to keep the "Get your own damn water" from slipping out as he walked off. It was a move he regretted about twenty seconds later, when the Joker caught up with him and slammed his head into the wall.

* * *

"_Jonny!_"

Pulling the blankets closer, Jonathan tried to ignore how cheap and uncomfortable the couch was, and get back to sleep. The bed had been decent, but he'd lost the bed two weeks and two days ago when he'd awoken to find the Joker climbing into it, and pushing him out. The man had never offered an explanation, beyond "I need a bed and you've got one." He hadn't protested when he'd realized who the intruder was, partially because the clown had a switchblade to his throat and partially because he'd witnessed through the newspapers in Arkham exactly how dangerous the Joker could be. And back then, there had been intrigue, a naïve desire to observe the madman firsthand.

Now, after sixteen days of sleeping on a rock-hard couch, and tripping over blood-splattered clothes and Chinese takeout boxes every time he got up in the night, he was beginning to think it would have been wiser to let the clown slit his throat.

"Jonathan!"

He opened his eyes just long enough to check his watch. Four nineteen in the morning. And the ache from the head trauma had kept him up until one. Christ. Bleeding out would have been better than this. _Ignore him, and he'll go away. Ignore him._ He didn't believe for one second that it would work, but if he got lucky—

"_Jonathan Crane!_"

His eyes opened again, right as the Joker flipped on the light switch, blinding him. Jonathan winced, rubbing his eyes, just able to make out the man's form in the doorway, blurred by the sudden brightness and lack of glasses. He appeared to be without a shirt. "Can't you wait until dawn to torment me, at least?"

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself! I've got the plague!"

"I beg your pardon?" Either this was an idiotic attempt at a practical joke, or the Joker was a hypochondriac. The latter seemed highly unlikely, but his panic did sound genuine. There was no way he had the plague—even with his glasses off, he could tell that there weren't growths on the Joker's neck or underarms, and the suggestion was ridiculous in the first place—but after squinting, he did see something all over the man, like open sores. Flesh-eating bacteria, if there was a god.

"You heard me! You called this a cold, 'Crow." He walked to the couch, raking his nails over his torso to emphasize his point. "Well, what d'ya call it _now_?"

Jonathan recovered his glasses from the floor just before the Joker's shoe could shatter them, sliding them onto his face as he sat up. He felt his jaw drop. "Varicella."

"_English_, Jonny." He scratched at his skin again, an action that Jonathan now recognized was to provide temporary relief against the blisters covering him, and not a gesture to accent. His expression was not quite worry, but the closest someone so inhuman could emote, makeup left in strips from being scraped at.

"Chickenpox." He wasn't sure what left him more bewildered: the fact that the Joker didn't recognize chickenpox on sight, or the fact that he'd never had it. Though both of those paled in comparison to visual of a pox-covered Joker having a conniption in the middle of his living room. How had someone with such terrible hygiene not already caught every communicable disease by this point in his life?

"Stop being useless." The Joker stopped scratching at what remained of his face paint long enough to flick his hand at Jonathan, as if throwing something toward his head. He resumed immediately afterward, leaving his exposed skin as red and irritated as the rash. "Adults don't, uh, get that."

"Yes, they do. It's just rarer because most people get it as children, and as such are immune." He didn't add that in an adult, it was usually much more severe. "You've honestly never had it?"

Beneath the makeup and the skin lesions, the Joker's face went suddenly blank. "No idea."

He hadn't, then. Jonathan's own case, acquired in the second grade, had been mild and short, and he still remembered it as the most miserable illness he'd ever gone through. Though that may have had more to do with the fact that his psychotic great-grandmother had been his caretaker at the time, and her bedside manner left even more to be desired than his.

So now he was going to be stuck in a one-person apartment with an itchy, fevered Joker until the blisters crusted over, which could be anywhere from five to ten days from now. Jonathan considered grabbing everything he could carry on his person and making a break for it. Unfortunately, it would seem that his expression had betrayed his thoughts, and the Joker's hand was clinging to his collar before he got more than a step around the coffee table.

"Fix this."

"How do you propose I do that? It's a virus." And even if it wasn't, while he was a psychopharmacologist, the emphasis was on the _psycho. _He hadn't had much practice in prescribing for ordinary afflictions, and it wasn't as if he had a pharmacy at his disposal, anyway.

"You've—" The Joker paused for a coughing fit, at no time bringing his hand up to shield his mouth, of course. "You've had it. You've gotta know something." It just figured. He was finally miserable, right when his unwilling host was too tired and possibly concussed to enjoy it. Jonathan was beginning to wonder if he was actually human at all, or the anthropomorphic personification of misfortune. That would explain so much of his life.

"Stop scratching yourself, to begin with." He realized this would take self restraint, and amended, "or at least put your gloves on when you do. You're risking infection, and you're going to end up covered in scars."

The Joker narrowed his eyes, ran his tongue over his facial disfigurements, that tissue unaffected by the blisters. "I happen to like scars."

"These won't be impressive. They'll look like birds have been pecking at your skin." He knew from experience, in more ways than one. "Other than that, ibuprofen, oatmeal baths, and calamine lotion. None of which I have."

The Joker released his collar and shoved him toward the door. "So get some."

He tripped over a carton that had once contained orange chicken and ended up sprawled over the coffee table. "Get it yourself."

"Listen, Jonny." Any good nature or worry the Joker's voice had held was gone, going strangely flat beyond the rasp caused by the coughing. There was a moment of silence, and then one of his feet came down on Jonathan's back, stars exploding across his vision as the wind was knocked from his chest. "I'm sick, and I'm unhappy, and, uh, not to sound ungrateful, but you're a _terrible _host."

There was a pause, in which Jonathan could hear the Joker clawing at his skin, and then he leaned forward, placing more of his weight onto the small of his victim's back, suffocating him. "You're supposed be a pretty smart guy, so I'm _sure _you've deduced by now that I'm stronger than you, I'm a better fighter than you, and unlike you—" There was a metallic zing, like a switchblade being activated, and he felt something metal and pointed being pressed against his inner thigh. "I've got _knives._ So unless you wanna lose your…uh, well, I don't think you've got balls, but unless you wanna lose something important, you oughta watch your mouth. Am I making myself clear?"

Heart pounding and lungs burning, he was unable to speak, and only just able to nod, consciousness fading from both asphyxiation and terror.

"Good." Both the knife and the foot lifted off, the Joker grabbing him by the collar again before he could regain his breath. He was lifted off the table and dragged toward the door, knees pulled across the carpet so quickly and forcibly that he could still feel the burn through his pants. The Joker opened the door, and threw him into the hall. "Oh, and I want raspberry Zingers, too."

And that was how Jonathan Crane found himself looking for an open-all-night store in the early hours of the morning, in February, alone in Gotham without a coat.

* * *

"Why don't you have cable?"

Jonathan felt the last, tenuous fiber of his patience snap. Five days. It had been five _days _since the Joker sent him out in the freezing night to get him medicinal supplies and preservative-filled confectionaries—and he'd breezed through his raspberry Zingers in about six seconds after Jonathan had returned. For reasons absolutely unfathomable to anyone of sound mind, at no point during those five days had the Joker left to seek medical attention, be it professional or back alley, no matter how many times Jonathan had explained how serious chickenpox could be in adults. He obviously had no self-preservation, or common courtesy.

Not that he'd expected the Joker to thank him, or even acknowledge that he'd just made his unwilling roommate spend all of what little he'd had. And yet, even knowing that, the breach in etiquette was still eating at him, probably because of the fever. He'd come down with something as a result of braving Gotham weather without so much as a jacket, which he'd assumed was a cold because of the aching, sneezing, hacking misery. Until the fever began this morning, and he'd realized that it had to be the flu.

God, how he hated the clown.

"Why don't I have cable?" he repeated, his voice drier than dust. "Oh, I have no idea. I'd say it was because I broke out of Arkham while they were trying to evacuate the asylum during your reign of terror, thus having no money except what I looted out of the only store I found untouched, and used that to get things that were essential to my life as opposed to entertaining. And that I only have a television because it's harder to track a secondhand store purchase than a newspaper subscription. But that would just be silly. I clearly did it to torment you, because I knew you'd invite yourself over _before I even met you_ and I didn't want you to enjoy yourself while you were ill."

The Joker licked his lips, then winced at the taste of the calamine around his mouth. He'd absolutely covered himself in the stuff for five days straight, coated in head to toe in pink even though Jonathan knew for a fact that the rash barely extended to his legs or forearms; the Joker had taken to walking around in nothing but his Batsignal boxers. Apparently, he'd realized that either infection or scarring would not be beneficial, and taken every possible precaution to keep from scratching himself. Or he was just being insane.

Jonathan was leaning toward the second one.

"You know, you've got a, uh, _lit_tle bit of a problem communicating with others," he said, once he'd recovered from the taste. "Your shrinks ever talk to you about that?"

_Only every single day. _"No." He shivered, wrapping the Joker's ridiculous purple coat tighter around himself. The Joker, absolutely indifferent to his host's plight, had stolen all the blankets in the apartment and refused to share, so he was stuck defiling himself like this. "I happen to think my communication skills are fine when I'm not speaking to homicidal clowns."

"If that makes you feel better, Jonny."

"I hate you." The fever had apparently robbed him of his sense of preservation.

"Hey." He felt the Joker's hand on his shoulder. Hopefully the lotion on it would leave an indelible stain on his coat. Not that it would be a remotely fitting comeuppance, but it would be a start. "Don't go saying things you don't mean."

"You _broke _my ribs." And invaded my home and stole my bed and ruined my sweater vest and spent all my money and made me get sick, he did not add. He doubted the Joker had the attention span to listen for more than three seconds.

"Oh, I did not."

"I think I would know."

The Joker pulled himself off the couch he'd been monopolizing—and staining pink—to sit on the floor beside him, invading his personal space, as always. "Lemme see your ribs."

"What?" Oh, absolutely not.

"Lemme see your ribs," he repeated, as if it was a perfectly reasonable request. "I'll prove they're not broken."

He shuffled backward, unable to stand because of the hand still clamped on his shoulder. "Let go."

"Let. Me. _See_."

"Get _off_."

In a blur of motion and pain, he found himself lying on the floor, the Joker sitting on his legs and pinning his shoulders with one arm while he unbuttoned the coat and shirt with the other. He felt his face burn for reasons entirely unrelated to the fever, and wondered if there was anything besides agony to be gained from struggling.

"Hey, I thought you said you couldn't, uh, get this stuff twice."

"Get what?" Broken ribs? The flu? Absolute humiliation? The list went on.

The Joker grabbed both shoulders, hauling up in a way that brought his head within a millimeter or so of colliding with the coffee table. Something he had about three seconds to be angry about, before the Joker steered his head down to stare at his own exposed abdomen, and the blisters forming there. No. No no no no no. _No. _"There's…that…"

Come to think of it, he had heard that the milder a case of the chickenpox, the less likely it was for an immunity to build up. _Hell._

"Well, at least you could make money doing pox parties, if you get _really _desperate."

Under ordinary circumstances, he didn't much swear, but this was about as far from normal as absolute zero was from the heat at the sun's core. "Jesus fucking Christ."

"Does that mean God's masturbating?"

* * *

Three days later and they were out of calamine.

Not that Jonathan had ever had any to begin with. Sharing wasn't one of the Joker's strong points, as he had not been surprised to discover. This was officially the worst illness he'd ever had in his life, worse than his first bout of varicella, and worse than that time in college when he'd taken a final while running a fever of one hundred and five. The itching would have been bad enough, especially with nothing to relieve it but staying in oatmeal baths for hours on end like some form of aquatic life, but the company pushed it from simply hellish to the ninth level of the inferno.

At least the Joker had been quiet this morning. Lifeless, nearly, lying in bed huddled under the blankets. Jonathan would have assumed he was sleeping if not for the constant whimpering. He had no idea what that was. Malnutrition, perhaps, or just hunger. All the food left in the house had been Ramen, and they'd run out of that last night. Jonathan had been subsiding on chamomile tea ever since, which he'd bought in the hopes of sedating the Joker. Of course the clown had never touched it. He probably wouldn't know a good cup of tea if it beat him over the head with a kettle.

He was beginning to remember why he hated chamomile tea.

Jonathan drew the shower curtain across the bathtub and lay down in the water, setting the cup on the side of the bath. It occurred to him that his skin could only take so much more submersion before it became waterlogged and the top layer fell off. He really ought to get more calamine, or at least see a doctor, but without any money, that was easier said than done. Besides, he could hardly walk into a licensed doctor's office without being arrested, and he trusted back alley doctors about as much as he trusted the Clown Prince of Crime.

There was a sound of footsteps, moving haltingly into the bathroom. _Speak of the devil. _He stayed silent. Perhaps the Joker would be too distracted by his hunger or whatever it was to notice Jonathan's presence. He certainly wasn't in the mood to hold his tongue, or have any sort of productive conversation with the man.

The toilet seat lifted, and he heard the metallic swish of a zipper going down. There was a moment of silence, followed by an abrupt and bloodcurdling scream.

_Holy Mother of God. _His first thought was that there'd been some sort of break-in, and the Joker was being stabbed, but he dismissed that as ridiculous almost at once. There was no sound of a struggle, and even when ill and fatigued, the Joker could take any attacker besides the Batman. And over the screaming, there was a sound of flowing liquid, so he was forced to assume the problem had something to do with the Joker's lower anatomy, the absolute last thing in the universe he ever wanted to think about.

A STD? Or…by this point, most of his lesions had crusted over, but there was a chance some had become infected before—no. He was not going to think about the Joker's penis. He unconditionally refused to devote anything remotely resembling a thought to the Joker's penis. It simply was not going to happen.

"_JONNY!_"

"I don't want to know about your herpes," he said loudly, considering drowning here and now. Certainly, it would be better than anything the clown had to say.

"Get out here! I'm _pissing blood_!"

Jonathan, about to submerge himself in the water and inhale deeply, paused, turning his head toward the shower curtain. "Come again?"

"I'm pissing _blood_!" The curtain was tugged back, and the Joker's hands were on him, pulling him out of the water. His struggles were, of course, futile. "Look!"

"I am not looking at your—" The Joker's hands were on his face—hands that, as he realized with a wave of nausea, had just been all over the man's diseased member without being washed—forcing his head in the direction of the toilet bowl. The water was clouded a dark orange-red.

He mentally ran through a list of foods that could discolor urine, none of which he had in his apartment, and chemicals that could do the same, which, again, he did not possess. That left kidney stones, or—_oh, hell._

"Well?!" He was steered around again to face the Joker, lines of worry etched into his painted face. "You're the doctor. What the hell is going on?!"

"Are you in—" There was no point in asking. The Joker's face was contorted with more than just fear, and his makeup was running from sweat. Of course he was in severe pain. "Are your testicles swollen?" God, there was something he never thought he'd ask.

"Yes!" He couldn't tell if the vehemence was from anger or pain, the Joker's hands shaking his head into nodding as he said it.

"What about the lymph nodes to the sides?"

A nod. The Joker released him and hobbled to the sink, leaning on it for support.

Jonathan took the opportunity to walk back to the bath, taking his robe from the shower rail and sliding it on. "Have you ejaculated blood?"

"Well, there's a fucking _brilliant _question." He hardly sounded like himself, his voice weak and broken by gasps for breath. "Yeah, I'm just swollen and in agony and decided it would be a great time to jack off. Christ, you're a smart one. Now what the _fuck _is wrong with me?"

"Orchitis."

The Joker threw a bar of soap at him, just missing his head. "Meaning?"

"It's a condition that can very rarely come from a virus like chickenpox, among other things. It means that your testes are inflamed and infected." He watched as the clown took that in, adding under his breath, "I hope you weren't planning on producing an heir."

"_What_?!"

Jonathan thought it best to remain silent.

"How do I fix it?" For the second time in their stay together, the Joker was showing genuine fear, and now it was much more apparent. "What do I take?"

"Ibuprofen."

"This is no_t _the time for jokes, Jonny." The Joker looked like a feral cat who'd decided he was sick of acting like a nice kitty, and Jonathan instinctively took a step back toward the door. "Give me a real answer, or I'll give you a trip to the intensive care unit."

"I'm serious." He held his hands out in defense, glanced from side to side for anything that could be used as a weapon or shield. "If orchitis is caused by a bacteria, there are antibiotics. But for a virus like chickenpox, the only recommended treatment is an anti-inflammatory painkiller."

The Joker actually growled, like a mad dog, and dove at him, his pain temporarily forgotten, overpowered by rage. Jonathan spun toward the door, almost tripping as the bath mat moved with him, and ran down the hall. "This isn't my fault!"

"Ask me if I care!"

He made it as far as the fire escape, when his getaway was suddenly put to an end as he ran into something tall, powerful, and covered in Kevlar. He didn't have to look up to know it was the Batman, who had somehow found this hideout, a clear and unmistakable sign that the universe itself was against him.

"You're going back to…" The Bat trailed off, eyes behind the mask widening by just a fraction as he took in Jonathan's spotted appearance. The door was thrown open again, and the Joker limped out, his fury apparently not enough to overcome the pain running caused. He stared at the Batman, a smile flickering across his face before he sunk to his knees, hands over his groin.

"…Arkham," he finished, his growl unable to sufficiently hide his confusion. "The both of you."

It occurred to Jonathan that the asylum's infirmary ought to have calamine, or some other form of relief. As well as a solitary cell for someone like the Joker. "Fine by me," he said, and then, by complete accident but with uncharacteristically perfect timing, sneezed in the Batman's face.

* * *

Joan Leland brushed her hair back from her eyes as she turned her keys in the ignition, stopping the engine. The wind in Gotham never seemed to stop, especially in winter, and stepping outside for the thirty seconds it took her to move from the restaurant where she'd had her lunch break was enough to completely undo the effects of her hairspray. Satisfied that it looked reasonably tamed—not that it mattered, walking back into Arkham would ruin it all over again—she turned her eyes away from the rearview mirror as she opened the door of the car.

And immediately saw the Batman standing in front of the hood, holding her patient Jonathan Crane with one hand, and the Joker with the other.

She stood with a gasp, sliding the key in her hands so the shaft poked out between her fingers—not that it would do a damn thing against his armor—other hand digging through her purse for her Mace. "What do you want?"

"I brought back your patients," he said, pushing them toward her. They were both cuffed, and looking more than worse for wear. Jonathan was covered in lesions, what appeared to be _chickenpox,_ if she wasn't mistaken, and was wearing only a bathrobe and his glasses, without even shoes. The Joker was fully dressed in his usual purple attire, but slumped over, moaning, and from the runs in his makeup, it looked as if he'd been _crying._ God only knew what the Batman had done to him. The man had murdered police officers, so it wasn't as if the life of a terrorist would mean a thing to him.

"What _happened_?" Against her better judgment, she stepped forward, closing the door of her car.

Jonathan met her eye with the most dignity he could muster in the situation. "I will be as cooperative in our sessions as humanly possible from now on as long as you get me a cell far, far away from _him_." He jerked his head toward the Joker, mouth twisting in disgust.

When the Batman had brought back escaped inmates after the Narrows poisoning, he'd seemed to appear with them in hand, and disappear the second she or the other doctors had turned their backs. Here, he tried to do the same, and would have succeeded if not for the bout of coughing that hit him as soon as he tried to slink off.

* * *

AN: An explanation for this madness: As I mentioned long ago in another of my stories, I have a weird belief that the Joker can't have children. For the comic version, that makes some sense, as spending time in a chemical vat can hardly be good for one's sperm count, but it's harder to justify for the film version. So I let my mind wander and this insanity is what came about.

A pH of zero means the item in question is as acidic as it gets. Battery acid, for example, has a pH of zero.

Hyoscyamine is a hallucinogenic chemical found in several plants, such as mandrake and deadly nightshade.

Pox parties are what it's called when parents who prefer not to vaccinate expose their children to a child with chickenpox, so they'll get the disease when they're young and it should be milder.

"Does Jesus fucking Christ mean God's masturbating?" was a statement uttered by one of my friends at random last year, and actually won him a randomness award in my dorm. As he was my first reader and encouraged me to keep going, I felt he deserved an homage.

And yes, I know being around them for twenty minutes or so wouldn't give Batman symptoms of the pox straight off. But you know, rule of funny.

If you enjoyed this, or if I've traumatized you beyond repair, give me a review and let me know!


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